Computing technologies have changed the way people and businesses accomplish various tasks. For example, rather than visiting a bank to withdraw funds, people now frequently go to automated teller machines (ATMs) to withdraw cash, particularly during evening or nighttime hours.
Hardware and software supporting ATMs (or computing platforms, more generally) tend to become inoperative over time. This inoperability may be the result of breakage/wear-and-tear, functional design limitations that only demonstrate themselves once a computing application has been implemented in the field, advances in technology that render the computing application (or product components thereof) obsolete, reduction or loss of vendor support and maintenance.
Classifications of “declining” and “not-permitted” (DNP) risk assessments are commonly used for purposes of forecasting risk of aging hardware and software products. Current methods and techniques for assessing DNP risk: (1) fail to account for applications that have multiple aging products, (2) take merely not-permitted classifications into account, and (3) fail to incorporate aging hardware risks.